


Impossible Yet Useful Numbers

by Tallulah_Rasa



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-29
Updated: 2014-06-29
Packaged: 2018-02-06 18:24:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1867842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tallulah_Rasa/pseuds/Tallulah_Rasa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam worries about the things that don't add up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Impossible Yet Useful Numbers

**Author's Note:**

> This probably makes most sense set in Season 2, around the time of "One False Step". (It was originally written and posted in 2003.) According to my technical advisor, there's no way spam could make its way to a facility like the SGC, so this might be an AU.

_What draws_

_singular_ _lives together in the first place,_

_loneliness_ _, lust, ambition,_

_or_ _mere convenience, is obvious, why they drop_

_or_ _murder one another_

_clear_ _enough: how they create, though, a common world_

_between_ _them, like Bombelli's_

_impossible_ _yet useful numbers, no one_

_has_ _yet explained._

_From "Common Life" by W. H. Auden_

 

Sam's on point, and as she tramps over the quiet brown hills she plays with numbers. The square root of the number of missions they've been on is greater than the number of times she's bought red shoes. The ratio of inhabited to uninhabited planets is roughly inverse to--

Something moves off to the side and she whirls, raising her gun, but it's nothing.

_Nothing_ is numerically interesting, she thinks. Really, the only numerical concept that's never attracted her is _one plus one equals two_ , the equation that's traditionally of most interest to girls. She's always gone for the bigger numbers, the more complex equations that drown out poor simple _one plus one._ It's funny that now _one plus one equals two_ seems to be the most complicated equation of them all.

She hears something again and turns to confirm what she already knows: they're arguing again. Daniel's gesturing, and the Colonel's voice is rising. Their heads are close together, and she marvels at how rarely they see eye-to-eye, considering all the time they spend nose-to-nose.

Sam knows that danger and constant proximity breed irritability, as well as closeness and trust, but she also sees that none of that really explains the relationship between Daniel and Colonel O'Neill. Logically, she and Daniel have the most in common; the Colonel shares more ground with Teal'c. Yet of the four of them, it's the Colonel and Daniel who share the bond that's deepest, strongest and broadest, and she worries at this as she worries at any technical problem beyond her immediate comprehension. At first she put it down to the alien mindset -- men! -- but as a scientist she's trained to assess things honestly, and she knows that it's not that she doesn't understand men. She doesn't understand _people_ , who rarely act logically, or consistently, or in a predictable way. Daniel, for all his strange life, has an intuition in this regard, a knowledge that goes far beyond anything she can hope to learn. If he spoke only one language, he'd still understand everyone in the Universe, and be understood by them. She, on the other hand, would easily navigate their technology, and then stumble over hello.

"That's ridiculous!" Daniel nearly shouts. The Colonel says something she can't hear. Though she can tell they're both serious, she can also hear laughter in their voices. That's another thing she doesn't understand. Daniel doesn't enjoy fighting, and the Colonel doesn't think it's funny, so why are so many of their arguments tinged with laughter? Why is it that they never come to a resolution, but still manage to avoid a breaking point? It's like wormhole physics, something she never really believed in until she saw it for herself. She can explain it now, and she's let it take her to other worlds, but according to all she knows as true, it shouldn't work. It makes no logical sense, like Daniel and the Colonel. But things that shouldn't work do -- she has to accept that. And she's beginning to accept that there are things she'll never understand, no matter how many times she rematerializes across the galaxy.

Today has been a case in point.

The mission hadn't gone well from the beginning. The planet was dry and barren, the naquadah deposit disappointingly shallow. Halfway through their recon a mob of Teal'c-sized lizard-frogs had come out of nowhere, hissing threateningly. The Colonel had raised his P-90, and she and Teal'c had followed suit, but Daniel had yelled at them to stop. After a long moment, the Colonel had lowered his gun. By then Daniel had already moved out, wriggling his nose and sticking out his tongue in imitation of the creatures -- and hadn't she wished she'd had the camera for _that._ A few hours later they'd been eating a surprisingly good vegetable stew and listening to Daniel hiss at the Dukes of Frozzard, as the Colonel kept calling them.

As they began their hike back to the Stargate, she'd mentioned that the planet's natives were much more advanced than the UAV had indicated.

"Not to mention," the Colonel had enthused, "they could keep the entire state of Minnesota free from flies and mosquitoes _forever_."

That had led to the current "cultural sensitivity" argument between the Colonel and Daniel.  And to yet another round in Sam's ongoing study of SG-1.

Team dynamics are perhaps the most challenging thing Sam's studied while at the SGC. She knows why, after a fashion: after losing her mother, the idea of investing in relationships was too risky even for an adrenaline junky, and besides, her brother and father didn't offer the most fertile ground for experimentation. But even without that, Sam always found her peers less interesting than her projects. Friends were people who loaned her books or tools, who shared her lab or helped her rebuild an engine. For a supportive, nurturing presence in her life, for a reflection of herself she understood and could live with -- for that she turned to science, not people.

It took the Stargate program to show Sam another side of friendship, and she knows she's explored it far more cautiously than she ever explored another planet. There have been any number of late night coffee runs with Daniel, who she thought she could peg but who defies definition time and again, and much laughter with Janet, who seems to have unlocked the secret to being a scientist and a person, too. There's Teal'c, who needs friends, but may be willing to sacrifice them in the name of a greater cause. And then there's the Colonel, who shows nothing, but is nevertheless transparent to Daniel. Together they create some sort of bond that's practically molecular, but also, rationally, not possible.

They're laughing again, and then she hears the Colonel say, "Well, maybe. Maybe. But I still think you're wrong about the other thing."

She's seen a lot of impossible things in her time at the SGC, of course. She knows her teammates trust in things they can't see. Daniel talks of intuition, but for him leaps of faith are second nature. Teal'c says there is truth beyond knowledge, but she thinks all Jaffa are trained to believe that. The Colonel, with so many years in the military, speaks of experience and gut instinct. They all seem to take this trust for granted; a small thing. Yet in all her time in the lab, studying things magnified under a microscope or measured in tiny increments, she's never seen it.

As they trudge on to the Stargate, she tries to picture the mountains outside the SGC. They're big, she knows. She thinks her teammates would be able to describe them: Size. Color. Smell. Feel.

She wonders if she's missed something enormous.

Later, after the debriefing, she decides the time has come to figure it out. At some point, you have to deal with impossible numbers, or there are some equations you can't play with. She's not willing to be cut out of the game, not now, not after all she's put into it.

She thinks about talking to Janet, but Janet's never been with them, though she's one of them. If she understands, it would be as an outsider. Sam doesn't want that.

She thinks about going to see Teal'c. She aware of the irony -- likes it, really -- that of everyone on earth, it's an alien she's most comfortable with. But the Colonel's in command, and in some ways he's the least complicated of them all, so she decides to see him first. Mostly it's that he's in command. She understands chain of command; that's a predictable, sharp-edged thing. She understands her relationship with Jack O'Neill. She's always liked things that are well defined.

She stands in the Colonel's doorway, debating strategy, and so is ambushed by superior forces.

"What's on your mind, Captain?"

"Well..." She notes the piled desk and the glowing computer screen, and thinks about taking the campaign to a better place and time. "You're busy."

"Nah, just reading email," the Colonel says. "You know, you can get a Ph.D. by mail for $19.95."

"Sir...," Carter begins.

"I wonder if that's how Daniel got his?" her CO wonders out loud.

"Sir?" Carter says again.

"What? No? You never know. Hey, it says here I can increase the size of my --" He bends forward, peering at the screen. "Uh, no, I...I don't have those." He looks at Sam, looks down, and looks up again purposefully avoiding anything but her eyes. "Uh, bookshelves. No, I don't have any of those, so I don't need to increase them. In size. Not that they're not fine the way they are, if I had them. Uh...Carter, did you want something?"

Sam takes a breath. "I'd like to talk, Sir."

O'Neill digests this. "Oh. Really?" He picks up a pen, looks at it, and puts it down. "If this is a technical thing, you might want to talk to Daniel. He's good with..." he waves a hand, "long scientific words."

"Why would you assume it's something scientific?" She's annoyed. He's a smart man, a man at ease with his power and experience; why does he never understand? But then she catches something fleeting in his eyes, and she's annoyed because maybe he understands too much.

"Oh, no reason," O'Neill says, sounding somewhat relieved, though only momentarily. "If this requires, you know, any sensitivity -- any at all -- you might want to talk to Fraiser."

"Sir."

"Or Teal'c."

_"Sir."_

"Siler. Anybody. Because, you know me, I'm --"

"Sir, I want to ask you a tactical question."

"Oh. Oh, by all means," O'Neill says, leaning back in his chair. He extends an arm. "Shoot."

"Well, that's just it, Sir."

"Excuse me?"

"You didn't, Sir. On the planet. You didn't shoot. Why?"

"I...." he begins, but then his face contorts. "Why do you need to know?" he asks.

"I'm...just interested," she says. "Like I said, it's a...a tactical question."

He tries to explain, but the Colonel's not much with words. "I just did what I had to do at the moment," he finally says with a shrug. "When you're in command, you will, too.Don't worry, Carter -- you'll be a fine CO."

She thanks him and leaves, because the answer can't be found in the Colonel's office. If one road leads to a dead end, you try another way of looking at the equation. What's bothering her isn't some future command; she knows she's a damned good officer. She wants to understand what just happened, right there on Frozzard World. Oh, she knows the details. But she wants to know what the Colonel saw. Did she miss a little thing, or the bigger picture? Did Teal'c see what the Colonel saw? Would Janet have seen it? What do other people see that she doesn't?

She makes her way down the hallway, running possibilities through her mind, analyzing a backlog of observations. Teal'c, she thinks, sees more than the rest of them do, a different picture, with different details. Daniel would say that's a cultural thing, having to do with language and world view. Of course, Daniel sees neither the big picture nor the details, but rather every picture ever drawn, from standing on his head. That's not much help. And he has a history of making choices she's never given herself the opportunity to consider. She's never asked him how he decided to go off with Catherine, how he decided to stay on Abydos. Some answers she's not ready to know. Still, you don't carry out a scientific study by avoiding the data, so she heads toward Daniel's office.

He's bent over his computer, oblivious.She taps on his open door. "Are you busy?"

Daniel looks up. "No, I m just catching up with email. I can get a college degree for $19.95, and I can increase the size of my -- no, wait, I can't; I don't have those." He grins. "What's up?"

"I want to talk."

Daniel sits back and pushes up his glasses. "Okay. Is this about the particle accelerator? I'm sure Siler will --"

"Why do you assume it's technical?"

"The same reason you assume that I generally want to talk about language, culture, or old rocks," he says, smiling. "Experience. Knowledge. And I'm not exactly the best person to go to for military strategy, relationship advice, or girl-talk. You want some coffee?"

"Please." She moves a stack of papers and sits in one of Daniel's battered chairs. There's a hole gouged out of the back; she heard it happened when the Colonel demonstrated how the Blackhawks scored a game-winning goal.

"So...?"

She breathes in the rich aroma from the mug he's handed her. "On the planet -- Daniel, how did you know you could communicate with..."

"The Dukes of Frozzard, as Jack would say?"

Sam grins. "Well, yeah. And how did you know the Colonel would listen to you?"

Daniel screws up his face. "Well...I guess I didn't know, know. If you know what I mean. I think it's my job to try and communicate when we're in a first contact situation. I know you guys cover the military angle, watch for threats, assess weapons. But the other stuff -- well, we thought the Nox were simple, at first, and it took me a while to understand Nem. I just thought..." He shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe I didn't think. Maybe it was just a feeling. You know?"

She doesn't know, not really, so she doesn't answer. "You walked up to the..."

"The Sssithari," Daniel prompts.

"Yes, the...Sithari," she repeats, tripping over the hiss in the name. "You walked up to them before the Colonel put down his gun. How'd you know he would?"

"Did I do that?" Daniel says. "Huh. No wonder Jack gets so pissed at me."

His phone rings then, and he's called off to look at a stone something SG-11 brought back from P3X-072. It might be covered with writing, he tells her, knocking a book off his desk in his hurry to see whatever it is, though it might just be spattered with animal droppings. He seems equally happy with either possibility. He hurries out into the hall, and she follows him and almost walks into Teal'c.

"Captain Carter," he says, inclining his head, and she feels instantly comforted, instantly comfortable, though she can't say exactly why. "You appear concerned," Teal'c continues, and she concedes that she is, though she finds herself saying that it's an equation that's on her mind. Well, in a way it is.

Teal'c invites her to the sanctuary of his quarters. The idea of a quiet place is appealing; her head feels too full. She sits while Teal'c lights his candles and then settles across from her. They're bathed in a glow that makes everything seem suddenly otherworldly, which is funny, considering she's sitting underneath a mountain with a man from another planet.

"What troubles you?" Teal'c asks after a moment. "Perhaps in speaking of the problem, you will see a solution."

"On the planet," Sam begins, but she doesn't know how to explain what she can't explain. "In mathematics, there are things called impossible numbers," she finally says.

"I see," Teal'c says.

"They can't really exist, but they're answers, anyway. Or they point the way to answers. It's...it's hard to explain."

"I see," Teal'c says again.

Sam sighs. "But I don't."

"That is not true, Captain Carter," Teal'c says gravely.

"How's that, Teal'c?" Sam asks. She feels he should be writing on a chalk board.

"It is as O'Neill says to Daniel Jackson," Teal'c says. "One does not always need to understand the antecedents and mechanics of a thing in order to choose the best way to utilize it, or to undertake a course of action."

"Come again?"

" ' I don't need to know the history of the thing, Daniel,' " Teal'c quotes solemnly, somehow catching the essence of the Colonel without actually imitating his voice. " 'I just need to know if it's going to explode if I pick it up.' "

Sam grins. "I see. I think."

"Sometimes one need only know the nature of a thing, or of a person," Teal'c says. "One can know very little of Daniel Jackson, for instance, and still feel confident in trusting his word. Or of Colonel O'Neill, and yet still believe in his ability to do that which he sets his mind to do."

"That's true," Sam says, and a series of numbers flit through her mind, from a sleepless night during grad school when she tried to see if you could actually prove mathematically that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

"Perhaps what is most significant about the numbers you seek to understand, Captain Carter, is not that they are impossible, but that you can make use of them."

Sam nods. "I'd still like to figure them out, though," she admits.

"This is what makes you who you are," Teal'c says, stately and controlled. "And so I am confident that you will one day find a way to understand that which you seek to know."

Sam smiles at him. "I hope so," she says, rising easily. "But first, I think I'm going to make a run to the commissary."

"You are hungry?" Teal'c asks.

"No. Well, yeah, a little, I am. But I just remembered they're having chocolate pecan pie today."

"Daniel Jackson will be pleased," Teal'c says.

"Daniel's wrapped up with some rocks from P3X-072 and won't get down there for -- well, maybe ever. And even if he does think to eat, if the Colonel gets there first, there won't be any pie left."

"I believe your assessment is correct," Teal'c says.

"Yeah," Sam says. "So I'm thinking if I slip down there now I could..."

Teal'c nods once more and rises. "I understand. This is one of the war games O'Neill has spoken of. I would like to accompany you. A warrior should not go into battle without support, and in any case, you may require a diversion in order to achieve your objectives."

The mountains are out there, Sam thinks. She knows more about their molecular make-up than their appearance, but maybe that's just knowing them a different way. Maybe knowing them that way makes her special. Or flawed. Or a little of both. But she's a soldier, and a scientist, and part of a team; the point is, she takes what she has and figures out a way to use it. Even if someone else might find a better way. Even if the numbers are impossible. "I thought you might," she says, though she really wasn't sure at all. She wonders about _four_ and _two_ and _one plus one_ , and then Teal'c ushers her out the door, and she decides to concentrate on pie.

END

**Author's Note:**

> One simple definition of an impossible number is the 2.5 children of an "average" family; a useful concept despite the fact that it's not possible to have .5 of a child.


End file.
